October 25th, 2011 by GruntDoc in News
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Wow, that is awful beyond belief.
Army seeking troops bitten by stray animals following rabies death – Army – Stripes.
SEOUL – The Army is redoubling its search for anyone who might have been bitten by a wild animal in Iraq or Afghanistan following the Aug. 31 death of a soldier from rabies, the service’s public health command stated Wednesday.
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“The death of this soldier is very tragic, and we are taking actions to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
August 30th, 2011 by Iltifat Husain, M.D. in News
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I was always under the impression that medical documentation was reserved for the office and the hospital. Not necessarily so — even in the battlefield, medics document medical care in real time.
Unfortunately, the tools they use to do this documentation consists of bulky Motorola hand held devices that are four years old.
Four years is an eternity in the tech world. To put this in perspective, I was still rocking a Motorola RAZR back then. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Army is field testing the iPhone, iPad, and Android smartphones in the battlefield. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
October 21st, 2010 by GruntDoc in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
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Via USAToday.com:
FREDERICK, Md. — The Army says it has discovered a simple blood test that can diagnose mild traumatic brain damage [TBI] or concussion, a hard-to-detect injury that can affect young athletes, infants with “shaken baby syndrome” and combat troops.
“This is huge,” said Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff.
Yes, it is, if it pans out. There’s so little actual information in this that it’s hard to get excited about it, but let’s say they’ve isolated a “brain injury” protein.
First, it would have uses outside traumatic brain injury (TBI), though that in and of itself might be useful. I don’t want to poo-pooh this test for TBI, but there are already rules for returning to contact sports (and combat has to be the ultimate in contact activities), so what’s the purpose here? (I forsee more Purple Hearts, which is fine.)
Stroke? TIA? Seizure? Pseudotumor cerebri, as a strain indicator? What if this is the test that allows us to diagnose meningitis without doing lumbar punctures? I’m all in on that front. Let’s hope this pans out, for all our sakes.
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
April 18th, 2010 by GruntDoc in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, True Stories
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Recently SSG Matthew Kinney was named Flight Medic of the Year at the DUSTOFF Association and AMEC Conference for his actions on Oct. 16, 2008, for which he was also awarded the Silver Star.
Wow. Just reading the citation impressed me. There are heroes in this world.
Via Mudville Gazette
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
June 9th, 2009 by KevinMD in Better Health Network
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The military is learning from the dead.
In the past five years, every soldier who was killed in Iraq and Afghanistan has been given a CT scan. Why? In the hopes of creating a database of war injuries, which can be used to better equip and treat future soldiers.
The effort has already paid dividends. While examining the data, it was noticed that chest tubes used to treat pneumothoraces in the field were too short. The standard tubing would have been appropriate for 50 percent of soldiers, versus longer tubing that would fit 99 percent.
Also, it was because of these “autopsy scans” where it was noticed that many of the troops died from wounds in the upper torso, which could have been prevented with the appropriate body armor. On the basis of these findings, the military rushed more armor plates to Iraq.
It’s an interesting piece, and goes on to discuss the sensitive implications of the findings to family members:
The possibility that a relative burned to death is a particular source of anguish for families, and one area in which CT can outperform an autopsy. In a body damaged by flames, CT can help pathologists figure out whether the burns occurred before or after death. The scans can also tell whether a person found in water died from drowning.
It’s truly remarkable to see how much that can be learned after death.
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
